Gabriele Münter (Berlin, 1877 – 1962) was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She studied and lived with the painter Wassily Kandinsky and was a founding member of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. Way back during the last decade I was fortunate to see a marvelous retrospective of her work at the now defunct private museum Pinacothèque de Paris. Her winter paintings capture that certain mood of Europe at this time of the year for me.